Systra, RITES to study Delhi-Amritsar high speed route

New Delhi: Railways have undertaken a study to run trains at a high speed of 300 kmph on Delhi-Chandigarh- Amritsar route to reduce travel time between the national capital and the holy city to just about two-and-half hours hours from the existing six hours.

The pre-feasibility study of the proposed 450 km long Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar corridor project will be conducted by French consultant agency Systra along with railways subsidiary RITES, said a senior Railway Ministry official.

The study will explore the possibility of running a bullet train at a maximum speed of 300 km per hour on the proposed Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar route.

"It would cost about Rs 7 crore and the contract for undertaking the study has been awarded," the official said.

The study will identify suitable routes for high speed alignment and station locations using satellite imagery data.

The report expected to be submitted in seven months also include environment impact, potential passengers as well as an indicative estimate of the cost to connect Delhi with Chandigarh and Amritsar on high speed rail network.

Systra and RITES have also carried out the study on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor project.

Apart from Delhi-Chandigarh-Amritsar and Mumbai-Ahmedabad routes, railways had identified five more corridors for running high speed train with the aim to connect commercial, tourist and pilgrimage hubs in India.

The routes include Hyderabad-Kazipet- Dornakal-Vijayawada-Chennai, Howrah–Haldia, Chennai-Bangalore-Coimbatore-Ernakulam-Thiruvananthapuram, Delhi-Agra-Lucknow-Varanasi-Patna and Delhi-Jaipur-Jodhpur.

The high-speed rail corridors will be built as elevated corridors.

Railways' white-paper "Vision 2020" submitted to Parliament in 2009 envisages implementation of regional high-speed rail projects to provide environmentally friendly time-efficient journeys which can be provided by the new high speed rail systems designed for trains travelling up to 300 km per hour.